Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Today we celebrate my baby girls second birthday. It is amazing to me to think that she was born two years ago today and I didn't even know she existed yet! WOW!!! But I think that somehow I did know because in these few days before we got the call about her I had become so anxious I was almost frantic to figure out a way to get my baby home. As if my heart knew she was out there and waiting for me.

Today she is a rambunxious, happy, smart and sweet little two year old. She obeys really well for the most part (although I am beginning to understand what they mean by those terrible twos). She is not terrible at two but certainly more independent, getting a stronger temper and showing more willpower than before. She LOVES her Mommy and Daddy and showers us with kisses and hugs though out the day. She is start to say "I love you" which is more like "wub you" but it is so precious to hear. Her current fad is the "ABC's" she wants to sing the song about a million times a day and wants to see over and over again, one portion of a certain Mickey video where they sing it. When she tries to sing it her self it comes out (with the ABC song tune) as "A-B-C-A-B-C-A-B-C-A-B-C" and so forth. And where ever she sees writing (whether in English or Japanese) she squeels and explaims " ABC's!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

I have a set of Baby Einstein learning cards and she can identify the circle, oval, square, rectangle, and triangle when asked. And she can identify one and two. Her favorite number however is two, so every other number after that is always two, unless prompted to say the correct number by Mommy.She still absolutely adores bow-wows, but can identify many many animals. All of them are identified by the noise they make and not their actual name. So cats are "meow, meow" dogs are of course "bow-wow", horses are "neigh-neigh", ducks are "ga-ga" (the Japanese noise they make), lions and tigers are "rahhhh", and so forth.

She absolutely loves Hermie the caterpillar! We watch that movie a couple times a day (she demands it imediatley after breakfast and potty trip are done first thing in the morning) and she would want it to play continuously thoughout the day if I would let her. We discovered hermieandfriends.com and she loves for me to print out the coloring pages for her.

She is just such a fun little girl. She is talking so much now that I can't possibly keep record of all the words she knows. She picks up several new ones a day. She speaks in a mix of Japanese and English. It feels to me sometimes like she is constantly speaking Japanese but really I think it isn't so bad. Most of her nouns are English and her verbs are mostly Japanese. She would be an interesting linguistics study. But Mommy and Daddy are as strict as we can be about making her say things in English before we respond. However, since we understand as readily what she is saying in Japanese sometimes we respond before we realize she said it in Japanese. It is taking a lot of self discipline for us both to reinforce the Enlgish in the home rule we have set up!

I am so amazed to be her Mommy and so thankful to the woman who gave birth to her. She is heavy on my heart today as well as the other family (birth grandparents and other extended) who may be thinking of her especially today. I wish they could also know this precious ray of sunshine and watch her grow. I would love to say thank you to them today and everyday for this amazing and precious gift of my daughter.

I can not believe two years have flown by. I wish I could slow down the clock, and at the same time I can not wait to see what a beautiful young lady this amazing daughter of mine turns out to be.

Sunday, August 20, 2006

On Thursday early morning Robynn left us, and then Friday Rocky's brother and his family left. We are now for the first time in 2 and 1/2 months a family of 3. WOW! We miss everybody but it feels good. We are really enjoying some down time, sort of. It will only be a matter of days before we have some concerts and many other regular ministry responsibilities. Life just never slows down for very long. But I don't think I would have it any other way.

My house is looking good now thanks to Robynn!!! The entryway is beautiful and for Hana's birthday she got a new room! I'll have to post pictures later. It looks so good. and in the living room I finally have decorations on the walls. The place looks lived in now! It only took a year! hahaha There is still plenty more to do, but for now the major traffic areas look great, and I couldn't ask for more.

My computer is acting up, so that is why I haven't posted in a while. For some reason today (so far) it is working. So I have to write as much as I can while I can.

In just 2 days my baby is going to be TWO years old. Where does the time go? She is growing sooooooo fast, and I sometimes want to freeze time and sometime can't wait to see how she grows up. She is so bright and beautiful. So smart, and so fun! But at the same time, sometimes she makes me want to pull my hair out. I know that sounds very familiar to every Mommy. She is becoming two in every way. She wants to do everything by herself and on her times. Often times that is OK with me and I am more than willing to help her learn to do it on her own. But when it comes to potty training and eating, we have our days where I wonder how I am going to survive this.

She is talking sooooooo much right now, but so much of that talk is in Japanese I worry. We surround her with English and Rocky and I speak totally in English only to her, but she insists in many cases on using Japanese. Especially when it comes to verbs. Most of her nouns are English though. So we get some mixed sentences. But in some cases I insist that the uses English and she refuses. Like when she is asking what something is, her phrase is "kore nani" which means "what's this" in Japanese. I won't answer her, and respond ALWAYS with "Hana say what's that." but she will NOT say it. She'll keep asking in Japanese and I keep telling her to say "what's that" and eventually she will just mumble something (as if she is answering herself about what that thing is) and then drops it and goes on to something else. It cracks me UP. She can be so hard headed. I wonder how long it will take for her to really get it. I think she fully understands that I am wanting her to say the other phrase but she just doesn't understand that one is English and one is Japanese yet. Maybe? Maybe she fully understands and just has Mommy totally fooled! I wouldn't be at all surprised if that were the case. Whew, this Mommy stuff gets harder and harder all the time!

So anyways, she's a blast. She's talking a lot right now but I never can recall all the cute things she does when I am sitting her typing. I need to write more consistently so I can catch it all! If I can get this silly keyboard fixed I will. But right now it has already messed up really badly during this typing session so I better close out.

On the workout front, I am doing great. I have reached a nice balance in what I eat, working out and weight. I am steadily at 64 kilo and eating more stuff I stayed totally away from before. I finally am back in the gym now that everyone is gone and I have a ways to go to catch up to the level I was at before. I can't do as much or lift as much but it won't be long.

Monday, August 07, 2006

Well, things are slowly returning to normal around here. The CMA girls are gone and we rested a little this weekend. Today Robynn and I painted the entryway! FINALLY!!!!!!!! My entryway is painted! It looks awesome. The walls are a dark beige color and we painted the trip glossy white. I should have taken a before picture, so I could show the difference. It looks sooooooooo good! We get to decorate tomorrow! There is a little bit of trim left to paint but it shouldn't take long. Robynn and I working together we did awesome. I am also tearing up the lenolium on the stairs. NOT easy to do. I bought a spray that helps unstick things, and it took one whole can of spray to do just two steps. We have 13 steps! It also took me about two hours to do those two steps. I will go back tomorrow and ask for something better to get the glue to let loose. This is so fun!!!!!!!

Well that is about all the excitement around here. Just praying the Robynn and I can stay motivated to paint, I feel like I am getting on a role here, I hope I can keep it up.

We are planning to ask for baby #2 soon. It seems the last time I got my house together, Hana came soon after. I wonder if I am suddenly motivated to get this all done cause a new baby will be here soon??? hmmmmmmmmmmm

Working out and eating right are going awesome. I didn't get to work out a lot since we got back, but I went once (Friday) and it felt great. I was too tired today after painting all day and tomorrow they are closed, but I will go back on Wednesday. I'm still doing well eating right, and I am down to 64 kilo (140 pounds) that's down one more kilo!!!!!! I just need to find the balance now. Eating right and working out. I don't really NEED to lose more weight.

We got some new scales and I love them. It does a body scan and tells me body fat percentage, muscle mass, etc. It is really cool all the info that comes off it. I score totally within normal range on everything. But my estimated body age is 33 (I'm 31) so I hope to bring that down with time! It's just the coolest scale, I wish I'd had it since earlier this year before I started working out. It would be cool to see how much all that info has changed.